Castleknock

Castleknock (Caisleán Cnucha in Irish meaning "Castle of the Hill" or "Cnucha's Castle"(1)) is a village with some affluent residential enclaves at the edge of County Fingal and located 8 km west of the centre of Dublin, Ireland. The village is located just inside the city's M50 motorway ring road, bordered to the west by the village of Blanchardstown and to the east by the Phoenix Park. The Royal Canal and the Dublin – Sligo railway line pass through the area. Castleknock is in the Dublin 15 postal area and the Dublin West electoral constituency. St. Brigid is the patron saint.

Amenities

Castleknock also lays claim to the largest tennis facility in Ireland, which was home to tennis for the 2004 Special Olympics. Golf is catered for by the municipal course at Elm Green on the edge of the village as well as by two private clubs in the Porterstown area. The local association football club Castleknock Celtic FC boasts over 600 playing members whilst rugby union is played at Coolmine RFC. Gaelic games are played at and St. Brigids GAA club.

A fine example of a Harry Clarke stained glass work can be found in St Brigid's Church of Ireland church, Castleknock. The church is the most prominent building in the village located beside the well known and popular public house 'Myos'. There is also a more recently constructed Catholic church nearby, called 'Our Lady Mother of the Church'. The layout and art works within are by Dublin based artist Imogen Stuart, with fine examples of Swedish tapestry work sculpture and furnishings. The current colour schemes are not in keeping with the original vision of an orchestra of light.

Retail outlets in the village proper are mainly found in the Castleknock Village Centre shopping precinct which houses a variety of small local businesses and restaurants. Ethnically themed restaurants include two Chinese, one Japanese and one Italian.

Public transport in Castleknock is served by Dublin Bus, Urbus and a commuter train station on the Western Suburban Maynooth line.

Schools

The village is also the location of Castleknock College, a Dublin secondary school for boys run by the priests of The Vincentian Order, which was exclusively a boarding-only school until 1987, following which day pupils were admitted. The other significant secondary schools in the locality are Castleknock Community College in nearby Carpenterstown whose pupils are mixed gender and the girls' only Mount Sackville Convent in Chapelizod. There are two primary schools, both of which are unsurprisingly called St. Brigid's. One of these is Church of Ireland denomination and the other St. Brigid's National School is Roman Catholic.

History

File:Castleknock village old.jpg

Castleknock has a long, significant and interesting history. Much of this can be discovered through the history of Castleknock Castle. The development of the area, from local village life, to a fully developed suburb of Dublin offers many interesting insights into recent history of urban planning in Ireland. Some notable families in the area have been Guinness, Holmpatrick, Drake, Crosbie, and Horgan. Two of the last members of the Horgan family were Eric Sealy Horgan (who identified Yellow Fever in The Sudan for the Anglo Egyptian Sudanese service), and his brother David Cecil Horgan an engineer who successfully patented a mechanism for the cleansing of turf generated smoke for use in peat driven cars during The Emergency.

Some noted present day Castleknock people include actor Colin Farrell, Olympic athlete Eamonn Coghlan, TV presenter Amanda Byram, Irish Government Minister Brian Lenihan, Jr and lovable scamp Josef Stalin.

External links

53°23′N 6°24′W / 53.383°N 6.400°W / 53.383; -6.400